Double Sided Printed Circuit Board and Method for Making Same

This invention relates to double sided printed circuit boards with interfacial connections and a method for making the same.

It is common practice in fabricating electronic circuits to utilize double sided printed circuit boards with a large number of interfacial connections. It is, of course, desirable that the connections be reliable and inexpensive. Commonly, plate through holes are used to make the connection from one board face to the other. This type of interconnection has proved to be wanting in reliability due to breaks which occur during thermal expansion and contraction of the substrate. An alternate type of interconnect involves the use of staples inserted through the board, however, that method is expensive and the nature of the staple inserting equipment limits the number of interconnections per circuit board to a low value. Moreover, circuit design changes requiring a relocation of a staple are exceedingly time consuming due to the difficulty of modifying the staple inserting equipment.

It is an object of this invention to provide a circuit board with interfacial connections which are inexpensive and more reliable than plated through holes and to provide a method of making such a circuit board.

It is another object of this invention to provide such a circuit board and method wherein a high density of interconnections is possible and wherein it is relatively easy to change the interconnect sites to accommodate changes in circuit design.

The invention is carried out by providing a double sided circuit board with apertures through the substrate and through portions of a first circuit on one side of the board. Portions of the second circuit on the other side of the board extend through the apertures and are electrically connected with the first circuit adjacent the apertures.

The invention is further carried out by forming a first circuit on one side of a substrate, forming apertures through the substrate at sites where interfacial connections are desired, applying a second circuit to the other side of the substrate with conductor portions overlying the apertures, deforming portions of the second circuit to extend through the apertures, and connecting such portions of the second circuit with adjacent portions of the first circuit.

The above and other advantages will be made more apparent from the following specification taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein like reference numerals refer to like parts and wherein:

FIG. 1 is an orthogonal view of a portion of a partially completed circuit board according to the invention showing one side thereof;

FIG. 2 is an orthogonal view of a complete circuit board showing the other side thereof;

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional detail showing an interconnection portion of the circuit board in FIG. 2 as well as a piercing tool;

FIG. 4 is a view of the detail of FIG. 3 taken along lines 4--4;

FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional detail view of an interconnection site according to another embodiment of the invention, and;

FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view of an interconnection detail for still another embodiment.

FIG. 1 shows a printed circuit substrate 10 preferably of the rigid variety and utilizing any conventional circuit board material. Printed circuit conductors or paths 12 are formed on one side of the substrate 10. Preferably the circuit is formed by a conventional etching process performed on a substrate which is copper clad on one side only. The circuit paths 12 include enlarged pads 14 at each site where an interconnection to the opposite face to the board is desired. If needed, solder resist is applied to all portions of the circuit 12 which ultimately is to be free of solder.

Apertures 16 are punched through the conductors 12 at each pad 14 and through the substrate. Then as shown in FIG. 2, printed circuit conductors 18 are applied to the opposite side of the substrate 10 such that initially the conductors 18 extend across the apertures 16. According to one embodiment of the invention, the circuit 18 is formed by bonding a conductive foil to the substrate and etching the desired circuit pattern. Again, solder resist is selectively applied to desired portions of circuit 18. At this point components, not shown, may be inserted in the circuit board in the usual manner. Then as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, a portion of each conductor 18 overlying an aperture 16 is deformed by a piercing tool 20 to form a tab portion 22 which extends through the aperture to a portion adjacent a pad 14 of circuit 12. The circuit is dip soldered to form a solder joint 23 between the tab 22 and the adjacent pad 14 thereby completing the interconnection from one substrate face to the other at the same time that the components are soldered to the circuit board.

It is to be understood that the apertures may be quite small, for example a 0.062 by 0.128 inch rectangle, although the specific dimensions will be dictated by the thickness of the substrate and other circuit design criteria. It should be noted that the piercing tool 20 is so shaped and dimensioned that the tab 22 has a strain relief design that is due to the horizontal portion 24 of the tab 22. As thermal expansion changes the thickness of the substrate, the tab 22 is able to freely flex without imposing a significant stress on the solder joint 23.

The conductors 18 optionally may be configured so that they contain pads surrounding each aperture similar to the pads 14 in FIG. 1. The tab 22 is then formed in the same way by the piercing tool, it being necessary for the tool to sever the tab from the pad along its sides as well as across the width of the tab.

FIG. 5 illustrates an alternative embodiment in which the conductors 12 are formed in the manner described above but the conductors 30 on the opposite side of the substrate are preformed on a separate flexible substrate 32 which is bonded to the substrate 10 after the apertures 16 are formed in the substrate. The tabs 34 extending through the apertures 16 are formed in the same manner as the tabs 22 in the embodiment of FIG. 3 with the flexible substrate remaining attached to the conductor portion of the tab. A solder joint 23 completes the interconnection between the tab 34 and the circuit 12. The preformed flexible circuit 30, 32 need not be limited to the boundaries of the substrate 10 but rather it may extend beyond the boundaries to serve, for example, as a preformed cable leading to a connector or to another circuit unit.

It should be recognized that in the embodiment of FIG. 5 as well as in the first described embodiment, the interconnecting tabs 22 and 34 are preferably formed simultaneously by a gang of piercing tools mounted on a die.

A high density of piercing tools can be attained on a single die to allow a large number of interfacial connections on a circuit board. The piercing tools can be relocated on the die without an exceedingly long delay in order to permit reasonably rapid changes in circuit design.

FIG. 6 shows another modification of the circuits of FIG. 1-4. There the tab 22' is formed into a U-shape so that it makes flat contact with the circuit 12. Then the circuit connection is secured by soldering, resistance welding or ultrasonic welding, for example. It will be apparent that the previous embodiments are also subject to modification, allowing the tabs 22 or 34 to overlap some portion of the pad 14 in a position suitable to perfect a bond by welding.

Thus it is apparent that the circuit board interconnection according to this invention is inexpensive and suitable for high density interconnections and is reliable by virtue of the very low stresses produced by thermal expansion.